I hope we all know about the masterpiece known as Rocky Horror Picture Show, if not, well you’re in luck because that’s what this article is about. So sit back, give yourself over to absolute pleasure and I promise after this we will do the time warp again.

Rocky Horror Picture Show is a musical/comedy horror film that was directed by Jim Sharman in 1975. The film was based upon the 1973 stage play of the same name with the music, lyrics, and book by Richard O’Brien who also did the screenplay and acted in the movie version of his play. The movie is a spoof of the science fiction and the “b horror” movies that were made from the 1930s to the 1960s.

The movie starts with The Narrater (Charles Gray) telling us the story of an engaged couple and their brush with a story no one will ever believe. We see Brad (Barry Boswick) propose to his girlfriend (Susan Sarandon) while singing the song Damn It Janet. After that scene we see Brad and Janet driving through a dark forest as it's raining, they hit something and their tire pops. They decide to walk back to a castle they saw while driving to ask for help and call someone. The door is open by who we later know as Riff Raff (O’Brien) after another song titled Over at the Frankenstein Place, inside we learn that there is a party going on in celebration of the “master,” we meet Menganta (Patrica Quinn), Riff Raff’s sister who looks like the maid of the house. Then we are introduced to the party-goers with the song Time Warp. We get to meet Columbia (Nell Campbell), a groupie after the song ends Brad and Janet are weary and try to leave and that’s when we meet Dr. Frank N. Furter (Tim Curry) to his song Sweet Transvestite. We learn that Dr. Frank N. Furter has an experiment to show the Transylvanians, Brad and Janet are stripped down to their undergarments and are brought up to the lab.

In the lab, Dr. Frank N. Furter says he has discovered the secret to life itself and brings forth a handsome, tall, muscular man named Rocky (Peter Hinwood) as he sings his song The Sword of Damocles. Dr. Frank N. Furter vows that he can make the world’s most ideal man in just a week with the song I Can Make You a Man. Not long after that Eddie (Meatloaf) breaks out of what looks like a deep freeze freezer, getting all of the Transylvanians singing and dancing Hot Patootie when Rocky starts enjoying it too much, Dr. Frank N. Furter jealous and kills Eddie, calling it a “mercy killing,” and brings Rocky to his bridal suite I Can Make a Man Out of You-Reprise. Soon after that Brad and Janet are taken to separate rooms where Dr. Frank N. Furter seduces them posing as the other. Janet, upset that she lost her virginity to Dr. Frank N. Furter and that Brad also slept with the doctor, wanders back to the lab to find Rocky hiding from Riff Raff and Magneta who were tormenting him. While helping Rocky with his injuries, Janet decides to become intimate with Rocky, while Columbia and Magenta watch on their bedroom monitor with the song Touch-a, Touch-a, Touch-a, Touch Me being sung by the cast.

When Dr. Frank N, Furter realizes that Rocky is missing he goes to find him with Brad, which ends up in them finding Janet and Rocky together and learning that Brad and Janet’s former teacher Dr, Everett Scott (Jonathan Adams) was looking for his nephew Eddy, who was a delivery boy who went to the castle where Dr. Frank N. Futer used half of his brian for Rocky. At the awkwardness of finding Janet and Rocky together, Maneta sounds like the gong for dinner. The guests then share an uncomfortable dinner for Rocky's birthday, Dr. Scott shares a song, Eddy, that is about how much of a trouble maker he has been since he was born. Dr. Frank N. Furter, annoyed by how the attention is about Eddy reveals that their dinner is Eddy’s remains. Frighted Janet runs into Rocky’s arms, provoking Dr. Frank N. Furter to chase her around the castle to Planet Schmanet Janet. The doctor, Brad, Rocky, and Columbia meet them in the lab where Dr. Frank N. Furter captures them with the Medusa Transducer, turning them into nude statues while Planet Hog Dog plays. We pan over to an old theater complete with an RKO tower and a swimming pool where Dr. Frank N. Furter has dressed up the statues in cabaret costumes when he unfreezes them and forces them to perform Rose Tint My World/Don’t Dream It be It and Untamed Thing.

At the end of the number Riff Raff and Magenta aper with space-cadet outfits and hairdos, Riff Raff informs Dr. Frank N. Furter that he had failed the mission and is taking over as commander. In an attempt to explain himself in I’m Going Home wanting to leave as a prisoner, but Riff Raff having no of it, kills both Dr. Frank N. Furter and Columbia with a raygun. Rocky enraged with what’s going on grabs Dr. Frank N. Furters body up the RKO tower and jumps into the pool, killing himself. Riff Raff and Magenta explain that they are going back home to their home planet Transsexual, in the galaxy of Transylvania, warning Brad, Janet, and Dr, Scott to leave before the castle leave for space. They are left injured and crawling in the dirt, as the narrator concludes that the “human race is equivalent to insects crawling on the planest surface, lost in time and lost in space.. And meaning,” the song Super Heros ending the movie.

This movie has had a tremendous impact all over, especially with the LGBTQ+ community, seeing people dressed as the opposite gender, and sleeping with both men and women? Must have made a lot of people feel seen. Rocky Horror Picture Show is and always will be a cult classic, from the mutual you see Patrica Quinn’s lips lipsyncing to Usherettes cover of Science Fiction/Double Feature to seeing Tim Curry in his iconic role of the Sweet Transvestite from Transexual Transylvania. Today you can go see people performing the movie as it plays behind them, I, unfortunately, can’t go see that for a couple more months, because to quote my mother “it’ll be too sexual, wait until you’re sixteen.” Sounds like good advice to me. My mom has seen that version of Rocky Horror a couple of times saying “It was a great experience, seeing all these people come to the gathering to watch a performance since the 70s.”

We are so lucky to have the Ferndale Repertory Theatre putting on the play version of Rocky Horror, though it won’t be the version everyone is familiar with, it will still be so much fun. I am excited to go see it for myself this spring with some friends. We could have even seen one of our teachers in the play, Mr. Young, the music teacher for Eureka High, said he wanted to audition for the play, but decided against it.

Rocky Horror Picture Show has influenced all over the US and the UK for years to have people be themselves, not to mention movies theatres making money by having showings at midnight for the ultimate experience, this cult classic has had a chokehold on the community as a way to show gender expression and be who you want and is still telling people that today. With the cult following this movie has it’s no wonder people are giving themselves over to absolute pleasure.